Whenever I teach freshmen, I spend a class or two on research methods. Of course, I mention Google, and how--and how not--to use it.
I don't lecture them about "good" and "bad" sites or "reliable" and "unreliable" sources. Instead, I show them examples.
At least I try to make the work fun. As an example of an "unreliable" or "bad" site, I show them the Flat Earth Society. They are invariably as amazed that such an organization and its website actually exist.
I can't tell you much about what FES does. However, I could easily believe one of its members designed the route I rode today.
It's one I've pedaled many times before, from my place to Point Lookout and back. The only climb (bridge ramps don't count) is the one from Jamaica Avenue to Forest Park, near the end of the ride back. It's not long or particularly steep, but if you stop for a traffic light at Jamaica, Forest Park Drive or any of the three intersections in between, it can take a bit of effort to re-start your climb.
Especially if you're riding only one gear. Especially if that gear is fixed.
I'm not complaining: As I've said, I've done the ride many times before. And when I have to start thrusting again after a stop, doing so on Tosca, my fixed gear Mercian (which I rode today) is painless just because the bike fits me and rides so well.
Anyway, because the ride is so flat--and tall buildings disappear behind me as I pedal south through Queens and east into Nassau County--vertical things stand out all the more. They don't have to be tall: They just have to be perpendicular to the expanses of water, shoreline and sky.
Also, I think the fact that today was as clear as yesterday was made those rocks, those sails, seem closer to the sky than they normally would.
It was slightly warmer (a degree or so Celsius) than it was yesterday, but I hardly sweated at all--even while riding 105 kilometers on a fixed gear bike. Of course, the levelness (Is that a word?) of the course had something to do with my lack of perspiration. Perhaps I should thank the Flat Earth Society. ;-)
Today I took another ride into Connecticut. I figured--correctly--that I wouldn't encounter heavy traffic even along Boston Post Road, as Route 1 is known in Westchester County. Most likely, folks from the Nutmeg State already took off for the weekend yesterday, or even the day before. Also, riding to Connecticut means riding away from most of the beaches in this area, which is where most travelers are going or have gone this weekend, which includes the Monday holiday of Labor Day.
I thought about taking off for some place or another this weekend. Now I'm glad I didn't: The ride I took today is more emotionally relaxing and satisfying than just about any trip I could have taken on a crowded train, plane or bus. Also, Greenwich, Mianus and Byram aren't full of tourists, and the people who stayed in town are relaxed and friendly.
This weekend, I also plan to ride again and meet a friend or two here in the city, which is strangely idyllic. Perhaps we'll go to a museum or show, or just "do lunch."
But I digress. I took slightly different routes through the Bronx and lower Westchester County than I had on previous rides. I also wandered through an area of Greenwich--up a hill--I hadn't seen before. There are houses built on stretches of land that could serve as game preserves. ("Deer crossing" signs were everywhere.) I stopped in a park where I was reminded that this is indeed the unofficial last weekend of summer, and the fall--the actual season as well as the autumn that includes the march of time across people's lives:
All right, I'm making more of this photo than is really there. The park itself is a well-kept spread of lawn with a single picnic table. I didn't want or need anything else.
Behind me, this tree stood authoritatively. It seemed such an indignity for it to share the same ground, from which it's grown for decades (if not centuries) with a fence and a garbage can.
That tree seems like a New England tree: It belongs where it is. Trees I see in the city, as lovely as they are, so often seem like they are where they are only at the pleasure of some land owner or agency that can evict or "retire" (I've heard the word used in that way) it to make way for something more profitable or convenient.
The ride back took me up and down more hills, past more palatial estates. Nowhere did I find a sign one normally finds when leaving or entering a state. I knew I had crossed back into New York State only because of a sign from the local police department--in Rye Brook--asking people to report drivers who text.
A few miles up the road, I passed through a city I had always avoided: White Plains. Somehow the name terrified me: I always imagined folks even paler than I am chasing away....someone like me? OK, maybe not me, but certainly most of the students I've had.
(For years, New Hampshire was one of two states that didn't observe Martin Luther King Day. I actually wondered whether it had something to do with having the White Mountains. Then I realized Arizona, the other state that didn't recognize MLK Day, had no such excuse!)
White Plains was a bit bland, though not terrible. It has a road--Mamaroneck Road--that actually becomes rather quaint, in spite of the chain stores on it, after it passes under the highway and continues toward the town for which it's named.
The rest of the ride was as pleasant as the warm afternoon with few clouds and little humidity. Even though I pedaled about 140 kilometers, I barely broke a sweat. But the relatively pleasant surprise of White Plains was balanced by a signal of The End of the World As We Know It:
The South Bronx is becoming SoBro? Oh, no!
I was a hypocrite. There was something I used to forbid my students from using. Then, one day--you know where this is going!--one of my students caught me red-handed with it.
If you guessed that thing is a smartphone, you'd be on the right track. I'm talking about something people often use on their phones--and tablets and laptops.
It's the conduit that led some of you, my dear readers, to this blog.
You guessed it: Google.
Larry Page and Sergey Brin, its creators, formally incorporated their company on this date, 4 September, in 1998.
I learned of Google's birthday, if you will when I was--of course--Googling something.
(What kind of role model am I? I teach students not to verb nouns. And I said I was "googling" something!)
It's quite a coincidence-- isn't it?--that Google's birthday is the day after that of eBay, which turned 20 yesterday. It wasn't the first Internet search engine, but it was probably the first to offer access to so much of the worldwide web in a format that most people can easily use.
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| Google's webpage, 1998 |
As I mentioned in yesterday's post, eBay seems to have been tailor-made for cyclists, especially those who are looking for parts and accessories, even bikes, that are no longer made or are simply difficult to find. Google, I believe, has been a boon for cyclists in a similar way: It has given us access to all sorts of information about bicycles and cycling.
Cyclists have been using Google to look for assembly or repair instructions, check parts compatiblity , find bike clubs and rides, learn about an obscure bike brand and search for all sorts of other cycling-related information for more than a decade now. All sorts of bicycle catalogues, manuals, brochures and magazines have been scanned and posted to various sites on the web, nearly all of which can be reached by Google.
Messrs. Page and Brin certainly chose quite the date to turn their Stanford research project into one of the world's great cash cows. Here are some other interesting and important events that took place on 4 September:
- 475 --Romulus Augustus, the last Emperor of the Western Roman Empire, was deposed when Odacer proclaimed himself "King of Italy". According to many historians, this event effectively ended the Roman Empire.
- 1781--City of Los Angeles was founded.
- 1870--Emperor Napoleon III of France was deposed and The Third Repubic was declared. (This is the reason why Paris and other French cities have streets called "rue 4 Septembre".)
- 1888--George Eastman registered the trademark "Kodak" and received a patent for his camera, the first to use roll film.
- 1951--The first live transcontinental television broadcast took place in San Francisco.
- 1972--Mark Spitz became the first competitor to win seven gold medals in a single Olympiad.
And...in 1957, Ford Motor Company introduced the Edsel. Oh, well.
Fun fact: Have you ever noticed that the letters of the Google logo are blue, yellow, red and green? Those just happen to be the colors of Lego blocks--which were used to build the enclosure that housed the first Google computer at Stanford.
